class="bi x0 y0 w0 h1"
How To Use
Evernote
By Mark O'Neill, />Edited by Justin Pot
This manual is the intellectual property of
MakeUseOf. It must only be published in its
original form. Using parts or republishing
altered parts of this guide is prohibited without
permission from MakeUseOf.com
Think you’ve got what it takes to write a
manual for MakeUseOf.com? We’re always
willing to hear a pitch! Send your ideas to
; you might earn up
to $400.
Table Of Contents
1. What Is Evernote?
2. An Overview Of The Desktop App
3. An Overview Of The Smartphone Apps
4. Tips, Tricks & Hacks
5. Evernote Add-Ons / Plugins
6. Conclusion
MakeUseOf
1. What Is Evernote?
Why do you want to use Evernote? There’s a
lot I could say, but to begin I’ll say one thing: I
willingly opened up my wallet to pay for a
premium subscription to Evernote. I can count
on one hand how many services have
compelled me to do that.
I see so many advantages to Evernote and
we will explore some of them in depth later.

Here is a brief rundown of the features that
could make your digital life a lot easier.
Find Anything, Anytime,
Anywhere
Evernote has its own OCR (Optical Character
Recognition) service which means that it can
read text, whether it’s computer keyboard
text, text in a PDF document, a photocopy of
some text (say a page of a book) or even text
in a photograph. If you are in a photo,
standing in front of a plane that says “US Air
Force” (for example), or any other identifying
marks, Evernote’s OCR function will read the
words “US Air Force” (or whatever else it
finds) and make those words searchable in
your account.
If you are wearing a T-shirt that says
“MakeUseOf.com” then the words
“MakeUseOf.com” become readable and
searchable. You get the idea.
Email All Important Documents
& Photos With Your Unique
Evernote Email Address
Evernote provides all users with their own
unique email address. You can use this email
address to automatically forward important
emails, important files, photos, other
attachments, and even email newsletters that
you want to keep a hold of, but not have clog
up your email quota.

on your computers and smart devices.
So if you’re out and about, and a great idea
strikes, don’t bother looking for a napkin and
pen. Just phone it in to Evernote!
Create Your Own Digital
Scrapbook
Create up to 250 notebooks and organize
your online digital life. Sub-categorize and tag
each one so you can find them easily. Now
when you want to put something quickly in a
notebook, open that notebook up and drag
your image or file directly into the notebook
area.
Store & Synchronize Your
Browser Bookmarks
Enter the URL of the article you want to keep.
Transfer all of your browser bookmarks over
to Evernote categorized and tagged, so your
browser can run faster. There’s no need to
use the browser to store your bookmarks
ever again. Put them in Evernote and
synchronize them across all platforms,
operating systems and browsers. Copy and
paste images into the note to remind yourself
what the URL is all about and why you initially
bookmarked it.
Notebook Sharing
With Evernote, you can collaborate with
others and show people what you have in
your notebooks (provided you have a

feasible and cost-effective to do so.
Access notebooks offline so you can access
them when you don’t have an Internet
connection. This is a great feature if you are
in the habit of travelling by car, train or
plane, where there isn’t an Internet
connection. You can work on notebooks
offline and then synchronize them when you
get a net connection again.
Share your notebooks and allow others to
edit your notes. This is great for online
collaboration, student and work projects,
family projects, and much more.
Note history – if you accidentally delete
something, or if you make a change to a
document that you regret, you can go to
your note history in your Evernote web
account, access the note’s history and roll
back to a previous version.
You can upload larger files to Evernote (up
to 50MB from a previous 25MB)
Faster image recognition. If you have a
scanned image with text or a photo with text
on it, being a premium customer will get
those images indexed faster by Evernote’s
OCR technology.
PIN lock – I am a big privacy person and I
am also nervous that if I lose my iPad and /
or iPhone in the street, the person who finds
them will have complete access to

stored there). Once that process has been
completed you can then begin categorizing,
sub-categorizing and tagging each note. If you
don’t have any notes to be imported, then just
jump straight in and start creating your first
note.
What Are The Advantages Of
The Desktop App?
No need to keep a browser open when you
want to access your Evernote account. Just
run the desktop app instead which will leave
a lighter footprint on your CPU.
Offline note-taking – completely replace
your other note-taking apps such as
Microsoft Notepad. When the desktop app
connects to the Internet all of your new
notes will be automatically synced.
3. An Overview Of The
Smartphone Apps
In my opinion the smartphone apps make
Evernote even more invaluable than it already
is. The ability to make notes, record
messages, and access your bookmarks
wherever you happen to be is a huge deal-
maker for me.
Since I own an iPhone, that is what I will be
focusing on here. So apologies to our Android
users who are reading this, but the iPhone
app and Android app are not much different in
terms of looks and features.